How the Presence of Airbnb has shifted real estate in New York City

Since the presence of Airbnb in New York, residential properties have shifted from a place to live, to a place to make a profit. The city of New York has since passed many legislation and are still in legal battles, but how effective have these limitations on Airbnb been?

How it Began

Airbnb first launched in 2008 as a product to allow travelers to escape hotels and hostels in order to have the 'homestay' experience. Since its launch the company has seen exponential success as it has expanded to 100+ cities across 220+ regions with more than 7 million listings worldwide. Forbes estimated the company at $31 billion. The company's success, however, has not been welcomed by everyone. Residents from across cities have argued for better policies protexting residents against the influx of rent and limited availability of properties caused by Airbnb. New York is currently listed as the third most popular city on Airbnb. In fact there is said to be 50,000 listings every block. We take a look to see how New York has handled Airbnb's presence and how the numbers add up.


A Timeline

The fight between Airbnb and New York has taken many turns throughout the yeras. Take a look at the timeline below to explore just how far it goes.

NYC Legislation

Protesters across the country have argued that Airbnb has forced an increase of rent and limited properties due to monopolization of the market. As a move to protect its residents, NYC's most recent legislation in 2016 not only prohibits, but fines hosts for advertising illegal listings. This bill specficially targets listings claiming to lease entire units for short term rentals (under 30 days) which has been illegal since May of 2011. In this 2016 bill, hosts found guilty are fined $1000 for their first offense, $5000 for their second offense, and $7500 for their third+ offenses. We take a look how this bill impacted number of Airbnb listings.

Number of Airbnb Listings Drop Following 2016 Bill

Since the 2016 bill, the number of Airbnb listings have significantly dropped proving that NYC legislation has deincentivized illegal listings.

The Law vs Profits

New York City is a hot spot for tourists and therefore Airbnb's market. We take a look at just how profitable the market is and if hosts are really complying with NYC.

Entire Units Are most profitable

Given that NYC is popular to many tourists, it is the perfect ground for Airbnb. As a host, however, what type of room gives you the most amount of profit? We take a look below.



Listings still do not comply with law

Seeing that entire homes are often most profitable, what percentage of listings are actually advertised correctly? We take a look at the minimum stay requirement posted for Entire Homes / Apartments. Results are seen below.

Hosts have multiple properties

Based on this data, it's seen that hosts are still not fully complying with NYC's law. We asked ourselves how many of those entire home or apartments were owned by the same person. Next is a look at hosts and the number of unique listings each has. Below is a comparison from before New York's 2016 advertising ban versus after.

Property Development

As hosts are continually posting illegal listings, property management has been expanding.

Rental Property Listings Increase Each Year

Because the New York housing development happened all at once in the 1980's, nearly all lower income areas need to have their buildings renovated again. The lack of funding for upkeep in most of these buildings caused most of these buildings to become ravaged. Even still, the housing development in New York has not seem to allow much change. New York has been steadily increasing the number of housing development projects in recent years, and will continue to do so, but most of these housing projects are for upper income residence and allow the one percent to keep buying up these rental spaces and leasing these units out. The other trend that is being observed is that rich businesses are buying up poorer areas and completely changing the area to lease out units to people who can afford the new housing. This is taking away more from the lower income people in the area and disrupting the housing market. This unfair system is creating a larger gap in allowing new Airbnb hosts to emerge in the market as well as not allowing lower income NY residents from living in these areas. Below we take a look a the increase in rental properties being build.



Number of New Airbnb Hosts Decline After 2016

Number of new unique Airbnb hosts are decreasing, yet overall NYC rental listings are on the uprise. This is allowing for a clear path for hosts to continue to monopolize on open units in the city.


Although NYC has passed bills aiming to protect its residents against larger property owners, both hosts and property developers aren't backing down. Airbnb's presence in the city is both strong and positioned for growth. The challenge for the government is to not only ensure affordable housing for its permanent residents but to ensure fair real estate in one of the most popular cities in the world.